Where’d ya go?
Monday- Work 10 hrs, try to recover from traveling and racing. Wear compression shocks!
Tuesday- Repeat, tell myself that I’ll ride the trainer after work, but I won’t.
Wednesday- Run errands that didn’t get done Mon/Tues, work, maybe lift at the gym.
Thursday- Rest, and ride for 45min. A few times I stretched the ride to 1.5hrs.
Friday- Wonder where my day went and ride for an hour, dance party of some sorts.
Saturday- Work 10 hrs, do openers after work on the trainer, pack for the crusade.
Sunday- Up early, carpool, constantly be amazed at how awesome the crusade is, cheer, race somewhere around the top 10, drive home, sleep.
Repeat.
So, since August, that’s what I’ve been doing. Not exactly the best cross season preparation or routine, but it’s what I’ve had to work with. Considering all the factors, I am pretty happy with how it turned out. The key to being able to maintain my fitness level has come from Bart Bowen at Carpe Diem Coaching. He’s helped me learn how to make the best out of the time I have for riding. Our original plan was to train long and hard enough to travel a full UCI schedule, focus on nationals and maybe travel to Belgium with Molly C. However, when life got in the way, I had to refocus. My plan has been all about training with power, using the time I had. It’s not all that fun sometimes, but a typical ride for me is, warm up 5-10 minutes, do 4, 4 minute intervals just below threshold and ride home. Once in a while do 3, 10 minute zone 3 workouts. Woo hoo, I know, but it paid off when I had tons of fun on Sunday afternoons!
So, that’s the secret to almost being a top 10 overall at the Cross Crusade. If you want to know more, get a hold of Bart and he can set you up with great training plans to fit any schedule.
My crusade series ended with a pretty good ride. Not as good as I would have liked, but it was a great race within the race with Mark B, Eric S and myself. I didn’t make the initial front split (it’s a reoccurring theme in my races) and had to work my way through the top 20. Once I hooked up with Mark we were able to work well together and chase down a few riders while keeping a big group off our tails. Eric, Mark and I rode around together for a good chunk of the race and with 2 laps to go, I made it my goal to get rid of Eric since with just Mark and I we seemed to be going faster. I didn’t want Eric out smarting me like he did both days in Hood River! After an all lap pull, I thought Sheagley was still with us and was a bit disappointed. When I gave a look back I was happy to see that we’d dropped him in a big way! The last lap was down to Mark and me battling it out all the while bringing back a fading Sager. We didn’t quite get to Jason, and headed into the last rodeo poop pit more or less together. Mark had 1 or 2 bike lengths on me, but I wasn’t concerned since I’d ridden the mud better every lap. I came up on him fast and we actually hit wheels sending me off my seat and my right foot hit the ground. I was able to do a scooter kick and kept myself moving forward enough to stay on the bike. At that point I figured I’d lost the battle as Mark sped around the next corner. Just about that moment I heard Don Leet going crazy for me, followed by my good friend Ali and 3 more of my Bend peeps all sitting along the fence. I figured I would give it one last dig and started bringing Mark back. He hit the deep mud before the puddle and let out a loud grunt as he slogged through the middle. I took the inside line like all the laps before and hit the puddle just on his wheel. What came next was a drag race where I slowly pulled around and crept up, eventually coming even before the final turn. I took my outside line to the tape and crossed the finish line in front of Mark giving a fist pump and a loud yell. If you didn’t know any better, you probably would have thought I won the race, not just the battle. A good end to a pretty good season. After the math was done, I came in 9th on the day and 11th overall by 1 point. 1 POINT! Damn, I really wanted that top 10. Next year.
photo by Ali!
Since I’m not really good at giving race reports in a timely manner, I’ll give you quick run downs of my races from where I left off. Last I posted, I wanted redemption at Rainier…
Rainier. Spent Saturday night at a wedding reception with my closest Bend friends. Only thing was we didn’t know the bride, groom, or anyone there! We got a hot tip that the Dirty Dozen Brass Band would be playing and we basically snuck in and danced till 1:30am. Good times. I was good and did not drink more than a few beers and went to bed sober. Sometimes that easier said than done. The dancing must have been good openers for my legs because I had my best race of the year the next day (I repeated the evening before the finals)! 7th with a hard fought battle between Kevin H, Ben T a Hagen’s Berman rider and myself. I was able to drop them on the last lap and enjoyed my final climb up that steep hill.
Astoria x2. First day I was pretty happy with 10th place. I had an awesome start and did what I’ve seen so many do before…ate shit at the 6 pack. I had finally made the front split of 5, we had a gap and I wasted the effort. I decided to shoulder my bike and went for the down tube, but changed my mind and tried to come back up for the top tube and just fell to the ground. I didn’t even trip on the barrier, but I rolled up next to it. Fetal style. I fell back a long way, but worked my way back. I also held off a hard charging Ben T and Carson Miller on the last lap. Day 2 was not so good. Made the front split and finished lap 1 in 4th right with the leaders. Awesome! I was stoked, but then it happened. I had nothing and slowly drifted back to 29th by days end. Knowing that I wouldn’t get lapped, I took a small break the last time by the stage. Every lap I was stoked to hear the sweet tunes coming from the area and I felt like dancing. The perfect opportunity presented itself when all the Bend crew were planted on the stage for the final lap. I pulled off to the side, ran to the stage and danced my way to a beer. I love cross. Back on the bike and finished. Note to all of you costume racers. DO NOT WEAR AN AFRO WIG ON YOUR HELMET WHEN IT’S WINDY!
Mid way through, on a downhill I was wondering why I felt so slow. Yeah, the wig was creating a sail that was slowing me down. Lame. I must have put out some good watts that first lap to make the split considering…oh well. Good times and the party was great. I love the crusaders!
Barton Park. Good start and rode a 2 man tt with my teammate Brig. Ben made the front split and eventually finished 4th. Brig and I were like 5 seconds back the whole time. Suck. If we could have made the split, it would have been 3 Sunnyside riders with the powerhouse Vanilla squad. Could have been fun. Next year! I flatted and that was the end of my good effort. After getting a wheel from my roommate I started back up passing a bunch and not passing some. Oh well, another wasted result in 22. Brig hung strong and finished 8th right where he was when I left him.
PIR. Awesome start, but too bad we had to restart. Bad second start followed by a good hour of racing. Nothing too eventful other than being cut off and ran into by Davey Yeater. I still have a large bruise on my thigh. He thought he could make a pass that he couldn’t and came into me on a side hill. I had nowhere to go, since I was already far left and he wasn’t strong enough to pass Ben T and me on the short stretch he chose. After yelling to him not to cut me off, he still tried and we collided. Neither of us went down, but I think that was the last we saw him. I punched it through the thick mud and Ben and I set off after Blackwelder. We got to him, but he snuck away on the last lap and Ben and I came into the finish together. He took 11th and I finished 12th. Not too bad considering Trebon, Shep and Tonkin were there along with the usual heavy hitters.
There you go. Another long post by yours truly. Hope you enjoyed reading about my season (there are some races left, but I’m not sure if I’ll attend). Once again, the Crusade has been a blast and it seems too early for it to be over. Oh well, only a handful of months before training for next year starts up! Thanks for reading!
D
